


Ode to Fury

by MadamPuddifoot



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Gen, Origin Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 02:44:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18274193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadamPuddifoot/pseuds/MadamPuddifoot
Summary: Ocat the Furious searches for a home to belong. But every where she turns, foulness plagues her. Will she find where she belongs?This is the backstory for how my original DnD character harnesses her barbarian powers and how she'll eventually end up with the other players in our group.





	Ode to Fury

**Author's Note:**

> Name: Ocat the Furious
> 
> Gender/Orientation: Female, Bisexual
> 
> Race: Half-Orc
> 
> Class: Barbarian
> 
> Background: Outlander
> 
> Languages: Common, Goblin, Orc
> 
> Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
> 
> Homeland: Northern tribes of Faerûn
> 
> Ideals: Might. In life as in war, the stronger force wins.
> 
> Bond: Those who fight beside me are those worth dying for. 
> 
> Flaws: My hatred of my enemies is blind and unreasoning. Violence is my answer to almost any challenge.
> 
> Religion: Ocat doesn’t necessarily worship any deity, but she pays homage to Gruumsh every day he whispers the rage into her veins.
> 
> Appearance: Ocat has all the typical half-orc attributes such as greenish skin, protruding jaw with teeth jutting out past her upper jaw. Her eyes are large, round, and violet. Her left eye, however, is almost a greyish-white. A long scar starting from her scalp, moving through her left eye, and ending mid-cheek caused some damage to the eye, but she miraculously retained her vision. Her black hair is braided into a plait that falls to her lower-back. She paints her face with the blood of her enemies. She stands at 6 feet tall, and 210 lbs of pure muscle.

Ocat sat on a horizontal log in front of the fire in the middle of camp, inhaling this evening’s stew. The leaders were acting peculiarly over the last few days, but any inquiries into the issue resulted in a lashing. Instead, she opted to observe their movements from the center of camp. Orcs she had never seen before arrived nightly, some carrying large crates with small holes dotting the sides, others escorting caravans of what she assumed to be supplies they had traded with neighboring tribes. Winter was setting in- she could see her breath form to gas as she exhaled- and thus it made sense they would trade for supplies to ensure a successful winter. Still, something didn’t seem right, especially with the threat of punishment if anyone dare pry too much.

Having left a tribe in her past for crimes against her, Ocat was still settling into this one, even after having been here for four years. She left her original tribe at the age of 16, and she remembered the day she left as if it were engraved in her mind. They attempted to force her into becoming a soldier, to further their conquest of taking over human lands. After her refusal to enlist, they brutalized her mother and father before her own eyes. Her parents begged her to leave and never return. The harsh orcs of the Grak tribe weren’t known for their compassion in the face of death, but quite the opposite. Ocat was handed a dagger- only one- and ordered to execute her parents. Tearfully, she faced them. Their eyes were wide, and they pleaded for their lives to end; to end their own suffering or to end Ocat’s, she wasn’t sure. Muttering apologies between sobs, she knelt before them, and slit their throats, then stabbed their hearts. 

Hands shaky and sticky with her parents blood, anger rose like flames of hell from within her soul. The silent whispering of hatred flowed through her veins like molten lava. She let out a roar of fury, grabbing the nearest weapon that would help her channel the anger. A battleaxe shone in the dim lights of the torture tent, and Ocat spun with the weapon in hand, chopping the heads off any orc in her vicinity. When the tent was drenched in gore, her breathing so heavy she felt as though she would suffocate, she fell to her knees, and drew a line down the center of her face with the orcs’ blood. 

She went to her parents bodies, still warm despite having succumbed to the cold embrace of death. She held them in her arms, sobbing. Unsure of how long she sat there, she whispered her goodbyes. Burying them was not an option. She would have to escape camp before the leadership discovered the scene. She stood, tucking the dagger she used to end her parent’s life into her leather boot. The battleaxe still shone unnaturally in the dim lights, as though it called to her. Picking it up, she made to exit the tent. Fortunately, the orcs of Camp Grak did their torturing at night, as if it kept the families from knowing the darkness within their ranks. Still, Ocat was grateful for the silence, allowing her to escape without notice.

And thus, here she sat as a member of the tribe Lurzal, who took her in without question; no doubt intrigued and impressed by the dried blood caked onto her entire personhood the day she arrived. They soon discovered her talents of fury and anger and dubbed her barbarian. Unsure if it was a good thing or not, she allowed them to train her to help her manage the anger that consumed her being at every waking moment. When they threatened lashing for her curiosity, she knew something was wrong. She thought she found her home, but she could not allow another leadership and camp fall to the darkness of conquest and torture. The camp was small enough that anyone could witness whatever they would do- yet another curiosity for their secrecy. 

Finishing the stew, Ocat stood up to stretch her legs. She heard a clunk, as if chains bound something, coming from the direction of the crates and caravans parading through the camp. Ocat moved silently toward her tent to watch from within the folds. She could have sworn she saw a fleshy finger poking from one of the holes in the crate before another orc slapped it, only to see the finger withdraw back inside. Swearing under her breath, she vowed to discover what leadership was up to after the camp was all asleep. 

Nearing midnight, the camp was still and silent. A blanket of snow covered the grounds, save for the area around the dying campfire in the center of all the tents. Ocat moved swiftly and silently, battleaxe in hand, and headed directly to the largest tent, where the crates had disappeared behind earlier that evening. She expected the leader to be asleep with his family, but as she slowly pushed through the opening, a different sight lay before her.

Human children of varying ages, none older than 12, sat chained and nearly clothesless (save for a loincloth). They clung to each other for warmth but still they shivered. The iron around their necks, wrists, and ankles must have been freezing, but they were shackled together so they could still bundle up to each other to stay alive. Fury swelled within Ocat, but she fought against it with all her might. She closed her eyes and took deep breaths to steady her limbs trembling to unleash violence. Once she swallowed the rage, she moved to a nearby table. A candle almost completely burnt out sat on it, casting enough light for Ocat to read a letter that sat beside it. It was in terrible handwriting, written in orc by a non-native speaker. It detailed an exchange- they provide human children for slaves of the camp, we provide mercenaries and protection. It was signed by someone called Jurian of Calandor. 

Ocat snuffed out the flickering candlelight, and crumpled up the letter before stuffing it in her pockets. There was no holding back the anger this time. They were all going pay. She moved from tent to tent, chopping the heads off every inhabitant within the camp. No one made a single noise; only the freed heads made a slight doof sound as they fell to the ground, muffled by the light snow coverage. When she came to the final tent, she found the leader of Camp Lurzal. He stood on guard, a greatsword ready for any enemy that might come into view.

“So, we take you in, no questions asked, train you even, and this is how you repay us,” he snarled at Ocat, who stood before him drenched in the blood of her orc brothers and sisters she just murdered. She carried the heads of the leader’s wife and son, both of whom slept in the tent next door. Ignoring his taunt, she tossed their heads at his feet.

He roared so loud he would have woken up the entire camp had they not been decimated by Ocat first. He lunged toward her, throwing all of his weight and power into a mighty blow, but Ocat, having guessed his movements, parried his blow with the shaft of her axe before spinning behind him and using the momentum to plunge the axe through his back.

“You will never find peace after what you’ve done here,” the leader choked out.

Ocat leaned close to his ear, hands still on the shaft of her axe, and whispered with pure wrath, “I am chaos. I am war. I am fury, and I am yours no more.” She placed a boot on his back to withdraw her axe. He slumped over; apparently without any fight left. Ocat flipped him over with her foot, but before she could lift her axe to behead him, he mustered the strength and gave one last swing of his greatsword, slicing down her face, temporarily blinding her in the left eye and staining her vision red with gore. 

She let out a toe-curling scream and swung her battleaxe into his neck, instantly detaching his head from his body. She reached for her face and felt a bleeding, hot wound that was slashed into her flesh, right through her eye. Still screaming with fury, her own blood dripping into her eyes, she swung into the final tent. Without hesitation she struck down every living being within. Their screams permeated the camp, but it was not enough to stop the fire within. 

Breathing heavily, trembling from rage and anger, Ocat moved the bodies one by one to the now dead fire in the camp center. The bodies of the children lay on top of the rest of the annihilated tribe, the heads of the fallen placed one by one in a circle around the bloodied masses. Ocat found a bucket of oil and doused the mass grave with it. She returned to her tent, gathered what little belongings she had collected over the four years of living at Camp Lurzal, and upon exiting, lit a torch. At the exit gate to camp, she tossed the lit torch on top of the mound of bodies and they were instantly aflame. 

Smearing the blood soaked into her hands across her face, she left without another thought. Ocat would find a group worth fighting with and for. And no one would be slaves ever again. Those children were free now, even if she felt a pang of guilt. To steady her thoughts, she hummed.

“Grief in the snow   
The winter of woe   
Has come here to judge and bereave me   
Lock up the rage   
It rattles the cage   
The fury it never leaves me.”

Those children will be avenged, even if it’s the last thing Ocat does. Her fist gripped the crumpled letter inside her pocket and she whispered into the darkness, “The fury it never leaves me.”

**Author's Note:**

> The tune she sings to herself and the title of this work is from the Miracle of Sound song called "Ode to Fury". 
> 
> Ocat is "taco" backwards. I actually made and named the character after one I dreamed about (her original full name was Ocat the glorious doof - "doof" being "food" backwards - there's even a slight reference to it in this story).


End file.
